Core Record

Verboeckhoven was born in 1799 in Warneton, West Flanders, son of the sculptor Barthelemev Verboeckhoven (1754-1840), from whom he received some instruction in modelling and lithography. Subsequently, influenced by the work of Potter and Cuyp and the teaching of B.P. Ommeganck at the Ghent Academy, he became an animalier in the seventeenth-century tradition, his style changing little in the course of a long career. Although this is not a typical subject for Verboeckhoven, there is a precedent for this type of composition in Peasant Asking his Way, (1844, Louvre, Paris). As in the Southport work, the sky dominates, occupying three-quarters of the composition, and there is similarly a centralised figure seated on a white horse.